Every episode of Syfy’s reimaginedBattlestar Galacticabegan with a promise to the viewers, in the form of an opening text crawl: The Cylons were created by man. There were many copies. And they had a plan.

It’s that last assertion that’s been a frequent and ongoing sticking point for fans of the series, who’ve tried—now armed with years of hindsight—to work out what that actual “plan” might be. It’s a tricky business, especially since watching the show itself suggests that the robots’ grand strategy was little more than “blow up the humans, then chase them, then fall in love with them, and then have a bunch of weird, possibly mental sci-fi orgies.”

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Now, series creator Ronald D. Moore has finally ’fessed up, admitting that there never was a plan; it was just a phrase he and co-producer David Eick thought sounded cool. “For the next 14 years of my life people have asked me ‘What was the plan?’” Moore said, speaking at the show’s reunion panel at ATX last weekend. “There was no… plan.”

Moore was confirming what the show itself mostly came out and admitted at the end, in the form of a finale TV-movie titled, ironically, The Plan. Told from the Cylons’ point of view, it made it clear that, whatever grand moves their leaders were making—mostly through the form of Dean Stockwell’s villainous One—the Cylons were ultimately just as screwed up as their human creators. That’s something of a relief, honestly, even if it won’t be much comfort for people who’ve spent years thinking on the faux-puzzle Moore and Eick set up with that opening text.